memory Flashcards
(27 cards)
coding, capacity, and duration of memory AO1
Coding- converting info to a different form (Baddeley) - recall words, STM worse with acoustically similar words. 20 min later, LTM did wirse than semantically similar words
↳info coded semantically in the LTM
Capacity- how much info the STM can hold
↳Jacobs- digit span= 9.3 letter span= 7.3
Miller 7 +/- 2
↳chunking= grouping digits/ letters into units
Duration
↳STM= Peterson + Peterson- 24 students, 8 trials, trigrams- counted backwards to stop rehearsal- On each trial, they were stopped after either 3, 6, 9, 12, 15 or 18 second- STM lasts about 18 seconds
↳LTM= Bahrick- 392 American participants aged between 17 and 74, recognition- 48yrs 70% 15yrs- 90%
Free recall- 48yrs 30% 15yrs 60%
coding, capacity, and duration of memory limitations
Limitation
-Artificial stimuli
-E.g. Baddeley- not meaningful material
-Not generisable
-In real life people may use semantic coding for STM
Limitation
-individual differences in STM capacity
-Daneman and Carpenter (1980) found capacity varied between 5 and 20 items for those with advanced compared to poor reading comprehension
-This suggests that STM is impacted by the ability of an individual to understand and process information- limits validity
coding, capacity, and duration of memory strengths
Limitation into strength
-Lack of validity
-e.g. Jacobs
-A long time ago= lack validity
↳confounding variables
-However results were confirmed in recent studies
Strength into limitation
-Higher external validity
-Bahrick- meaningful memories
↳recall lower with meaningless memories
-However- confounding variables- may have rehearsed at home
Types of long-term memory AO1
Episodic- recall events form our lives
- time stamped, conscious recall
Semantic- knowledge of the world
- not time stamped, conscious recall
Procedural- actions and skills
-unconscious recall
Types of long-term memory strengths
Strength
-Clinical evidence
-HM + Clive wearing
-Episodic memories impaired but semantic unaffected and procedural unaffected (Clive playing the piano)
-Increases validity
Strength
-Supporting evidence
-Tulving (1989) looked at brain scans of six participants who all performed the retrieval of 4 semantic and 4 episodic memories
-Left prefrontal cortex= semantic
-Right prefrontal cortex= episodic
-Increased validity
Types of long-term memory limitations
Limitation
-Opposing explanations
-Cohen and Squire- only 2 types of LTM- declarative (semantic and episodic) vs. non-declarative (procedural)
-This is because it is very difficult to separate episodic and semantic memory into separate types; they are also both stored in the prefrontal cortex, suggesting some similarity
Limitation
-case studies into those with brain damage lack control
-There are no clinical measurements of the individuals before their brain damage
-Therefore, it could be that their memory structures do not represent those of ‘neurotypical’ people because they were not ‘neurotypical’ before the event
-it is hard to generalise the findings from case studies as they only look at one individual- cannot be assumed that everyone’s LTM works in the same way
multi store model of memory AO1
Atkinson and Shiffrin
Sensory register- duration= ½ second, high capacity
STM- duration= 18-30 seconds, capacity 7 +/- 2, coded acoustically
LTM- capacity unlimited, coded semantically
multi store model of memory strength
Strength
-Supporting clinical evidence
-HM was unable to code new LTM, but his STM appeared unaffected
-This demonstrates that the MSM consists of separate stores
-Increases validity
Strength
-Supporting research
-The serial position effect (Murdock, 1962) supports idea of separate STM and LTM stores
-Words at the beginning of a list (primacy effect) are recalled because they have been rehearsed and transferred to LTM, while words from the end of the list (recency effect), are recalled as they are still in STM
-increases the validity of the MSM
multi store model of memory limitations
Limitation
-Evidence to show there are different types of LTM
-Clive Wearing caught a virus that caused brain damage and the inability to transfer STM into LTM
-He could not recall what his children were doing with their lives (episodic memory) could remember how to walk and play the piano (procedural memory) knew facts about the world such as women changing name when married (semantic memory)
-LTM may be more complex than that proposed by Atkinson and Shiffrin
Limitation
-The Multi-Store Model (MSM) of memory may be overly simplistic as it only accounts for maintenance rehearsal
-Craik and Watkins (1973) found that elaborative rehearsal, not just repetition, is necessary to transfer information to long-term memory (LTM)
-Elaborative rehearsal involves deeper processing, such as linking new information to existing knowledge, which is more effective for long-term retention. This suggests that the MSM does not fully explain the complexities of memory, particularly how information is stored in LTM
Working Memory Model AO1
Baddeley and Hitch (1974)
Central executive- It manages attention, and controls information from the two ‘slave stores’
Phonological loop- auditory store (holds the amount of information that can be spoken out loud in two seconds)
- articulatory process (‘inner voice’)- allows maintenance rehearsal (any language presented visually, that is then converted to a phonological state)
- The phonological store- holds auditory speech information and the order in which it was heard (or any visually presented language converted by the articulatory process
Visuo-Spatial Sketchpad- stores visual and spatial info
Visual cache- stores visual information about form and colour
Inner scribe- spatial relationships and the arrangement of objects
Episodic buffer- facilitates communication between the components of the WMM and LTM
It integrates information from the other stores to bring the information together and maintains a sense of time sequencing
It can hold 4 chunks of information
Working Memory Model strengths
Strength into limitation
-Clinical evidence KF
-Poor STM for verbal info but good STM for visual info (PL damaged)
-Increases validity
-Unique case study
Strength
-Supporting evidence form brain scans
-Braver et al., (1997) gave participants tasks that involved the CE while they were having a brain scan and found greater activity in the left prefrontal cortex
-As the difficulty of the task increased, the activity in the left prefrontal cortex also increased
-as demands on the CE increase, it must work harder to fulfil its function
-Increases validity
Working Memory Model limitations
Limitation
-Little is known about the CE
-Cognitive psychologists argue that its vague definition allows it to explain any experimental outcome—whether tasks can or cannot be performed simultaneously
-Because the CE is said to be either “overloaded” or “not overloaded” depending on the result, it appears to be a self-justifying concept without concrete evidence of how it actually functions. This weakens the explanatory power of the model
Limitation
-The WMM has been criticised as the VSS implies that all spatial information was first visual and that the two are linked
-Lieberman (1980) points out that blind people have excellent spatial awareness, although some blind people have never had any visual information
-This contradicts the idea that the VSS consists of two systems
interference theory as an explanation for forgetting AO1
Interference- Forgetting because one memory blocks another, causing one or both memories to be distorted or forgotten
Proactive- Forgetting occurs when older memories disrupt the recall of newer memories
Retroactive- Forgetting occurs when newer memories disrupt the recall of older memories, already stored
McGeoch and McDonald (1931)- investigate whether the similarity of memories influences recall
Ppts had to learn a list of 10 words until 100% accuracy- 6 groups- words had different similarities
Group 1 = synonyms, Group 2 = antonyms, Group 3 = unrelated words, Group 4 = non-sense syllables, Group 5 = 3-digit numbers, Group 6 = no new list
The most similar material, group 1 synonyms, produced the worst recall
interference theory as an explanation for forgetting strength
Strength
-Supporting research
-Baddeley and Hitch (1977) found that rugby players forgot team names based on the number of games played, not the time that had passed, indicating retroactive interference
-The learning of new team names interfered with the memory of earlier ones, supporting the idea that interference, not just time, causes forgetting—even in real-life situations
interference theory as an explanation for forgetting limitation
Limitation
-may be overcome by using cues
-Tulving and Psotka (1971) found that recall dropped as more word lists were learned, but when category cues were given, recall returned to around 70%
-This suggests that interference effects are not always permanent and can be overcome with the right cues, meaning interference theory may not fully explain all forgetting
Limitation
-Interference theory cannot explain all examples of forgetting
-There are times when information that is not like other stored information is forgotten
-This theory is therefore too simplistic to explain forgetting, which is likely to be a complex phenomenon
-This theory is therefore too simplistic to explain forgetting, which is likely to be a complex phenomenon
Limitation
-Interference research often lacks external validity due to artificial lab conditions
-Studies typically involve learning and recalling word lists within short time frames, which doesn’t reflect real-life memory use
-These controlled setups are designed to produce interference, so findings may not generalise to everyday forgetting
retrieval failure as an explanation of forgetting AO1
Retrieval failure – Can’t access info due to insufficient cues.
Tulving – Encoding Specificity Principle:
→ Cue must be present at encoding & recall.
→ Meaningful cues e.g., mnemonic
→ non-meaningful e.g., context & state-dependent forgetting
Context-dependent forgetting –
Godden & Baddeley – Sea divers: 40% ↓ retrieval in non-matching conditions
State-dependent forgetting –
Carter & Cassaday – Antihistamines → drowsy
→ Mismatch between states ↓ retrieval
retrieval failure as an explanation of forgetting limitations
Limitation
-Recall vs recognition
-Godden & Baddeley also studied recognition of words
→ No context-dependent forgetting
→ Cues only affect memories when tested in a certain way
Limitation
-Questioning context effects
-Baddeley:
→ Such differing contexts not in real life
→ ↓ explanatory power
retrieval failure as an explanation of forgetting strengths
Strength
-Supporting evidence
-Godden & Baddeley, Carter & Cassaday
-Eysenck – Retrieval failure = main reason for forgetting from LTM
-Lab experiments → ↑ validity
Strength
-RWA (Real World Application)
-E.g., leaving a room and forgetting why → re-enter & remember
-Used in cognitive interviews (reinstate context)
effect misleading information has on eyewitness testimonies AO1
Leading questions
Loftus and Plamer
Ppts watched car crash videos video and changed verb in question
‘Contacted’- estimated 31.8 mph
‘smashed’- estimated 40.8 mph
Response bias- The wording of the question has no real impact on the participants’ memories; it just influences how they decide to answer. When participants get a leading question like ‘smashed’ it encourages them to choose a higher speed estimate
Substitution- The wording of a question can change the participant’s memory. This was demonstrated in Loftus’ second experiment, where the participants had their memory altered depending on which word they heard in the original question
Post event discussions
Co- witnessed discuss a crime- false memories can be created by misleading post-event experience
Gabbert et al- ppts watched crimes from different POVs then discussed together
71% included info they didn’t see
Control group= 0%
effect misleading information has on eyewitness testimonies strengths
Strength (LQ)
-Loftus and Palmer’s study had a great deal of control
-All participants were shown the same video and given the same instructions. This means that the verb in a question impacts on the rating of speed and the memory of glass
-This increases the validity that leading questions can impact memory recall
Strength (post event discussions)
-Gabbert et al’s., research has increased population validity
-The study used two different populations – students and older adults. The results between the two groups were similar
-This suggests that people of all ages are equally impacted by post-event discussion. The results are therefore able to be applied to more people
effect misleading information has on eyewitness testimonies limitations
Limitation (post event discussion)
-Gabbert et al’s., research lacked mundane realism
-The task involved watching a video of a crime where money was stolen from a wallet. Participants probably guessed that they were going to be asked questions about the video
-In everyday life people do not know that they are going to be a witness so they may not be as aware of what is going on. Also, the emotion that might be present during a real crime such as a robbery will not be there when watching a video
-This reduces the validity of this supporting evidence
Limitation (LQ)
-Tomes and Kitz (1997) found that personality may impact how susceptible a person is to leading questions
-They found that individuals who identify with other’s moods are more affected by leading questions, implying personality factors influence EWT
-Therefore, leading questions may not impact everyone in the same way and therefore cannot be generalised as an explanation for inaccurate recall
anxiety affecting post event discussion AO1
Negative affect on recall
Johnson and Scott (1976)
Lab study (waiting room)
Low anxiety= arguments and man walks out with pen and grease
High anxiety= arguments and man walks out with bloodied letter opener
Low anxiety= 49% recall
High anxiety= 33% recall
weapon focus effect= focus on weapon only
Positive effects on recall
Yuille and Cutshall
Real life shooting in gun shop in Canada
21 witnesses= 13 ppts
4-5 months after incident asked to rate stress on a scale
High stress= 88% accurate recall
Low stress= 75% accurate recall
Yerkes and Dodson’s inverted-U hypothesis
anxiety affecting post event discussion limitations
Limitation
-There is contradictory evidence for the weapon focus effect
-Pickel (1998) arranged for participants to watch a thief enter a hairdressing salon carrying scissors (high threat, low surprise), a handgun (high threat, high surprise), a wallet (low threat, low surprise), or a raw chicken (low threat, high surprise)
-Identification was least accurate in the high surprise conditions rather than the high threat conditions
-This suggests that the weapon focus effect may be the result of surprise rather than anxiety and therefore limits the theory as an explanation of the accuracy of EWT
Limitation
-The inverted-U explanation is reductionist as it only focuses on the physiological aspects of anxiety
-It says that it is the physical changes to the body and brain during stressful incidents that impact the accuracy of EWT
-However, anxiety is more complex than this and has many components including a cognitive element
-take a more holistic approach
Limitation
-Field studies can lack control
-Researchers usually interview real-life eyewitnesses sometime after the event for example in Yuille and Cutshall’s study
-The researchers have no control over discussions with other people about the event, or accounts they may have read or seen in the media etc
-This means that witnesses may exaggerate their own memories or even create false ones based on influences around them
-may not be anxiety that is impacting the accuracy of EWT but other factors
anxiety affecting post event discussion strength
Strength
-Supporting evidence
-Oue et al., (2001) found that participants who were anxious from viewing emotionally negative events recalled fewer details from the edge of a scene than participants witnessing emotionally neutral events from the same position
-This suggests that anxiety reduces witnesses’ fields of view, showing anxiety impacts on the accuracy of EWT
